From: haleyjd AT NOSPAM DOT hotmail DOT com (James Haley)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: No new line at end of file?
Date: 07 Sep 2002 00:51:45 GMT
Organization: Concentric Internet Services
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

I want someone to show me the precise line of the ANSI and/or ISO C
standards where they say that there have to be newlines at the end of
files.

I have used DJGPP with gcc 2.81, SunOS gcc 2.95.3, Visual C++ 6.0, and
several other C and C++ compilers and not a single one of them
enforces such a ridiculous and arbitrary requirement.

C is specified to be a freeform language and this means that
whitespace is irrelevant.  If there needs to be at least one token of
whitespace between an include file and the module into which it is
included, then it should be the responsibility of the C Preprocessor
to insert one or more such tokens to guarantee that there is space.

I have taken over 48 hours of Computer Science classes, one of which
was a dedicated ANSI C class, another of which was a C++ class, and
two of which were language design classes. Not only that, but I am
also in the process of writing a compiler for a C-like language whose
grammar is based upon the ANSI C grammar itself, and I can assure you
that it has no requirements for new lines.

I am the maintainer of the code that Joel mentioned here, and frankly
I resent being expected to perform such asinine whitespace formatting
in a free form language. I refuse to waste any effort toward doing
this, and I suggest that the writers of DJGPP learn how to write and
maintain a usable compiler and stop changing the whole interface and
behavior of the program between every minor version change.

Until that time, I'm through trying to support the DJGPP platform.